Tage Fritjof Erlander was a Swedish politician who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1946 to 1969.
17 Facts About Tage Erlander
2.
Tage Erlander was the leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and led the government for an uninterrupted tenure of 23 years, one of the longest in any democracy.
3.
For most of his time in power, Tage Erlander ran a minority government of the Social Democrats.
4.
The Social Democrats held a majority of seats in the upper house for most of this time and this allowed Tage Erlander to remain in power after the 1956 general election, when the right-wing parties won a majority.
5.
Tage Erlander resigned the following year during a process of major constitutional reform, and was succeeded by his long-time protege and friend Olof Palme.
6.
Tage Erlander was born in Ransater, Varmland County, to Alma Erlander and Erik Gustaf Erlander.
7.
On his maternal grandmother's side, Tage Erlander descended from the Forest Finns, who migrated to Varmland from the Finnish province of Savonia in the 17th century.
8.
Tage Erlander graduated in political science and economics in 1928.
9.
Tage Erlander was a member of the editorial staff of the encyclopedia Svensk upplagsbok from 1929 to 1938.
10.
Tage Erlander was elected to the municipal council in Lund in 1930 and became a member of parliament in 1932, and was appointed a state secretary at the Ministry of Social Affairs in 1938.
11.
Tage Erlander ascended to the cabinet in 1944 as minister without Portfolio, a post he held to the next year, when he became minister of education and ecclesiastical affairs.
12.
When Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson suddenly died in 1946, Tage Erlander unexpectedly was chosen as the successor and subsequently as the leader of the party.
13.
Tage Erlander's working relationship with the party's leader, Gunnar Hedlund, is known to have been good.
14.
Tage Erlander coined the phrase "the strong society", describing a society with a growing public sector taking care of the growing demand on many services that an affluent society creates.
15.
From 1972 to 1982, Tage Erlander published his memoirs in six volumes.
16.
Tage Erlander died on 21 June 1985 in Stockholm at the age of 84 from pneumonia and heart failure.
17.
Tage Erlander was the father of mathematician Sven Erlander, who published much of the content of his father's diaries from 2001 on.